Adding an expert to the team: The expert flight plan critic*

This paper reports the development of a practical tool that provides expert feedback to students following an extended simulation exercise in cross‐country flight planning. In contrast to development for laboratory settings, the development of an expert instructional product for everyday use posed some interesting challenges, including dealing with a larger content scope, less ideal and controllable content structure, greater emphasis on the completeness and continuity of the student experience, and more stringent limits on time and money. Moreover, the transition from laboratory to real world caused the developers to think more critically of the principles of instruction embodied in the product and to place less emphasis on computer tool and technique questions. The product, which will be used in the context of routine ab initio pilot training, is described in terms of how these problems were solved and what lessons were learned that can be applied to the development of future instructional systems involving expertise.     

The relative contributions of the Cattell‐Horn‐Carroll cognitive abilities in explaining writing achievement during childhood and adolescence

This study examined the relative contributions of measures of Cattell‐Horn‐Carroll (CHC) cognitive abilities in explaining writing achievement. Drawing from samples that covered the age range of 7 to 18 years, simultaneous multiple regression was used to regress scores from the Woodcock‐Johnson III (WJ III; Woodcock, McGrew, & Mather, 2001) that represent CHC broad and narrow abilities onto the WJ III Basic Writing Skills and Written Expression cluster scores. At most age levels, Comprehension‐Knowledge demonstrated moderate to strong effects on both writing clusters, Processing Speed demonstrated moderate effects on Basic Writing Skills and moderate to strong effects on Written Expression, and Short‐Term Memory demonstrated moderate effects. At the youngest age levels, Long‐Term Retrieval demonstrated moderate to strong effects on Basic Writing Skills and moderate effects on Written Expression. Auditory Processing, and Phonemic Awareness demonstrated moderate effects on only Written Expression at the youngest age levels and at some of the oldest age levels. Fluid Reasoning demonstrated moderate effects on both writing clusters only during some of the oldest age levels. Visual‐Spatial Thinking primarily demonstrated negligible effects. The results provide insights into the cognitive abilities most important for understanding the writing skills of children during the school‐age years. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Youth Disciplinary Identification During Participation in Contemporary Project-Based Science Investigations in School

Recent science educational policy reform efforts call for a shift toward practice-focused instruction in kindergarten–Grade 12 science education. We argue that this focus on engaging students in epistemic practices of science opens up new possibilities for the design of learning environments that support the stabilization of learners’ science-linked identities. Learning environments often assume that youth come to them without relevant identity resources to contribute or that the learning environment has no bearing on the disciplinary identification of individuals. We conducted this research while developing a year-long course to teach high school biology by engaging youth in interest-driven projects focused on contemporary topics. We explored how engaging youth in the epistemic practices of science in culturally expansive ways supported their science-linked identification. We propose a model grounded in social practice theory that describes aspects of students’ stabilization of disciplinary identities. We found that (a) deepening participation in scientific practices is linked to whether or not youth have opportunities to coordinate their engagement with their existing identities; and (b) material, relational, and ideational identity resources and qualities of the learning environment mediate how youth stabilize disciplinary identities in interactional moments.     

The micro-determinants of meso-level learning and innovation: evidence from a Chilean wine cluster

Most analyses of the relationship between spatial clustering and the technological learning of firms have emphasised the influence of the former on the latter, and have focused on intra-cluster learning as the driver of innovative performance. This paper reverses those perspectives. It examines the influence of individual firms’ absorptive capacities on both the functioning of the intra-cluster knowledge system and its interconnection with extra-cluster knowledge. It applies social network analysis to identify different cognitive roles played by cluster firms and the overall structure of the knowledge system of a wine cluster in Chile. The results show that knowledge is not diffused evenly ‘in the air’, but flows within a core group of firms characterised by advanced absorptive capacities. Firms’ different cognitive roles include some—as in the case of technological gatekeepers—that contribute actively to the acquisition, creation and diffusion of knowledge. Others remain cognitively isolated from the cluster, though in some cases strongly linked to extra-cluster knowledge. Possible implications for policy are noted.     

Sustainability and distance learning: a diverse European experience?

Higher Education (HE) is experiencing disruption from technologies, demographics, the globalising world and longer life expectancy. Historically Higher Education has had a legacy of being seen as the requirement for an educated ‘elite’, there has been a policy ambition set in various countries (including the UK) for it to become the expectation for much wider segments of the population as a whole. As students become ‘everyone’ and learning becomes ‘all the time’ Distance Teaching and Research Institutions have a tremendous opportunity but there are also many disruptions and barriers to overcome. Higher Education institutions have an important role within Education for Sustainable Development and sustainable lifestyles; one of the important goals and targets of the United Nations Sustainable Development goals for 2030. Higher Education can contribute to sustainability in many ways – social, technical and environmental; globally and locally. In particular distance-learning universities due to the flexibility in the learning process, use of technologies, and inter-disciplinary approach to teaching and learning, constitute key factors in education for sustainable development. But what will this contribution look like? In this paper, the responses from senior leaders in four major European distance-learning universities are presented, compared and discussed. The tentative conclusions draw out some strategic imperatives for sustainable higher education in the twenty first century.     

To What Extent Do Reform-prepared Upper Elementary and Middle School Science Teachers Maintain Their Beliefs and Intended Instructional Actions as they are Inducted into Schools?

We report the results of survey research that collected responses of an identical sample (31 beginning mathematics and science teachers, elementary and middle school level) that graduated from a reform-based mathematics and science teacher preparation program, the Maryland Collaborative for Teacher Preparation (MCTP). We compared responses of the same beginning teachers over the two administrations of the survey. The 1st administration was conducted soon after the beginning teachers graduated from the MCTP program, but had not started full teaching. The 2nd administration was conducted after the new teachers had taught full time for a minimum of a full year, with the majority having taught for 2 years. Results indicated that in all areas the MCTP teachers maintained their reform-based beliefs.     

Grounds for health: the intersection of green school grounds and health‐promoting schools

Despite the growing body of research on green school grounds, relatively little has been written about their relationship with health promotion, particularly from a holistic health perspective. It is this relationship that we explore in this paper – the power and potential of green school grounds to promote health and well‐being and to be an integral element of multifaceted, school‐based health promotion strategies. Specifically, we bring together recent research to examine green school grounds as places where the interests of educators and children’s health advocates can meet, inform and support one another. By grounding our comments in recent thinking about health‐promoting schools, we highlight the growing body of evidence that green school grounds, as a school setting, can contribute to children’s physical, mental, social and spiritual well‐being.